Swift Air grounds 6 planes in probe

FAA is investigating pilot-training program

by Megan Neighbor - Jun. 23, 2011 12:00 AMThe Arizona Republic

Swift Air LLC, owned by business mogul Jerry Moyes, voluntarily grounded six of the Phoenix-based airline's planes last week after the Federal Aviation Administration sent a letter saying it was investigating the carrier's pilot-training program, the company said.

The airline, which has catered to clients such as Sen. John McCain, would not provide details about what provisions of the training program were being investigated. No sanctions have been issued.

The company had not resolved the issue with the FAA on Wednesday and therefore kept its planes grounded.

"The inquiry from the FAA was . . . detailed enough where we felt we needed to respond with an overabundance of caution," said Kevin Burdette, executive vice president of Swift Aviation Group, the parent company of Swift Air. "There can be no shadow of a doubt. Safety drives everything we do every day."

The FAA would not comment on the ongoing investigation.

Burdette said a letter notifying the airline of the FAA's concerns arrived Friday after 5 p.m., shortly before Swift Air's inaugural flight from Rockford, Ill., to Croatia and then Serbia.

That route was intended to be an ongoing service with Chicago-based Air Plus, but it's now indefinitely on hold, Burdette said. A recording on Air Plus' general phone line says the company will refund all those who booked the flight, including 221 passengers who were on board Friday's flight when it was canceled before takeoff.

Two additional flights had been canceled since, Burdette said Tuesday, although he did not disclose where those flights were headed or who was on board.

On Monday, the airline provided the FAA with "explanation and clarification" on questions surrounding the company's pilot-training program, a program previously approved by the FAA, Burdette said.

Since 1997, eight Swift violations have resulted in FAA sanctions. Letters detailing the violations were not immediately available, the FAA said.

The most recent violation, in December 2006, led to a warning letter.

Of the eight violations, seven resulted in warning or correction letters. A warning letter requires the airline to fix the violation. Correction letters require the company to show proof a violation has been fixed, a spokesman for the FAA said.

Both warning letters and correction letters carry minor sanctions.

Only once did the company receive a more serious sanction: It was fined $15,000 in May 1998.

Burdette, who became vice president of the company in 2004, according to Arizona Corporation Commission filings, said he could not speak to the airline's previous sanctions.

The pilot-manual issues addressed in Friday's letter from the FAA could be resolved without sanctions, something Burdette is hoping for.